Amazon essentially declares war on alternate Fire TV launchers that replace the default home screen

It turns out FireStarter isn’t the only app being disabled by the new 5.0.5.1 Fire TV and Fire TV Stick software update. FiredTV Launcher, another alternate home screen replacement app for the Fire TV, has also been blacklisted by Amazon and is now being automatically disabled. This is damning evidence that the reason behind Amazon disabling FireStarter has nothing to do with its unconventional use of internal ADB connections, and everything to do with forcing you to use the Fire TV and Fire TV Stick their way.

Alternate launchers, also known as home screen replacement apps, have long been a part of the Android experience. If you don’t like the default look and feel of your Android device’s home screen, you can install a new one to completely replace the one put in place by the device’s manufacturer. Despite the Fire TV’s operating system being built off of Android, the ability to use an alternate launcher on the device has always been disabled by Amazon from the beginning. However, that hasn’t stopped cleaver programmers, like FiredTV and FireStarter’s developers, from finding their own ways to force their launchers to work with the Fire TV. Apart from denying these alternate launchers a place in the official Fire TV appstore, due to “overriding the native user experience”, Amazon had otherwise ignored these apps. It now appears that Amazon is actively disabling these apps after they’ve been manually installed by customers via sideloading.

Hardware analysts have determined that Amazon generally does not make any money when selling the Fire TV or Fire TV Stick hardware. Instead, they rely on the sale of movies, shows, and apps, as well as advertisements in the user interface, to be a primary source of profit for the Fire TV hardware line. This is why it’s important for Amazon to keep customers on the Fire TV’s default interface, where they’re most likely to spend money while using the device. Using an alternate launcher on the Fire TV is akin to buying a movie ticket, but entering through the emergency exit so that you’re not tempted to spend any money at the concession stand, which incidentally is the primary way most theaters can stay in business. Sure, there’s nothing illegal about doing that, but if everyone did it, the theater would likely go out of business. In the same manner, if everyone used an alternate launcher on the Fire TV, it too would likely cease to exist.

It’s understandable that Amazon has started fighting back against apps that threaten their business model for the Fire TV and Fire TV Stick. However, it doesn’t seem right to now release a mandatory software update that dictates which apps can and can’t be used, especially for a device that, for some, was purchased two years ago.

96 comments

hi AFTVnews.
is the adb shell pm hide com.amazon.device.software.ota command still works ? i have tried yesterday and it worked fine, and today i have try again the same commend on second device (fire stick) and i get : unknown command ‘hide’

HALauncher is blocked as well. All I need is a grid interface of my installed apps only. This would be nice without having to sideload or clone apps. It should just be a basic feature. I could care less if they even decided to throw banner on the top. “My apps” is atrocious as a user interface. If the gave us that personally I wouldn’t need something else. Every other streaming box uses a variation of a grid where you apps can be rearranged (Roku, AppleTV and AndroidTV). Amazon should have worked on their in face rather than blocking

I only used FireStarter as a convenient way to access my sideloaded apps. The amazon app list can get cluttered so it was easier to have a separate list of just sideloaded apps. I still mainly used the default amazon home screen.

Stuff like this makes more open android based systems like NVidia shield look better.

Shield is better. And I say that as a prime member. The bigger price tag will drop and then I’m most likely done with aftv. Its not just the aggressive resentment they seem to have for root users but I was very unimpressed by the tiny upgrades they brought with gen 2. Haven’t tried it but apple TV 4 is running kodi. I’m not tempted much but if amazon can get me to even consider apple its not a good thing.Its just that its strayed so far from android that aftv isn’t much better in terms of being open. My gen 1 is fine for now. When the time comes I’m moving away from aftv. Only down side is I won’t have a site nearly as good as aftvnews to visit daily.

I should have mentioned, I spent a total of 147 US – that included the board (which has Quad core 2ghz processor, 2 gig RAM, Gig ethernet on board, 4k @ 60fps HDMI video), a cool case, wifi adpater, power cord, 32g emmc drive and adapter to reflash as desired, and a remote/keyboard combo.

I have been using an Apple TV 4 for about 3 weeks and while I am not running Kodi on it a program called Infuse works great with my NAS. Every one of these boxes has their ups and downs. One of the things I found out during our last internet outage is that the Apple TV will still play movies off my NAS which no other box I have will do.

….should have added. Both those apps allow a connection to your NAS while the internet is down. Firestarter is what made it easier to get to the app in the first place without that intrusive Amazon screen telling you that you currently don’t have internet access, but both access my NAS without internet access just fine.

“Stuff like this makes more open android based systems like NVidia shield look better.”

Yep. This all day long. Now that they’re allowing sideloaded apps in the Recent section of the homescreen, I technically don’t need Firestarter anymore, but I don’t like the precedent that this sets. What are they going to ban next? I’m not likely to throw the baby out wit the bathwater. I’m keeping the Fire TV that I already have, but I’m not likely to purchase another one in the future. I’m looking at the Nvidia Shield for a future purpose. At the very least I’ll probably be investing in a generic Android box if only to get access to the Google Play Store. I want to start untangling myself, at least to some extent, from Amazon’s ecosystem before things get worse.

Really nice write up Elias. Definitely a gray area here to blacklist apps. That is not making Amazon look good. And it is a loosing battle of cat and mouse if the package name can just be changed. It would be a mistake for them to continue this way.

Then again, anyone who roots or exposes exploits (remember the Wii?) knows that you have to block updates and you might not ever get updates again. While this is not exactly the same thing as what Amazon is doing, the workaround here shouldn’t be that difficult. If you don’t like what Amazon has done with this update, root, roll back, turn off updates.

Eventually people will get tired of missing out on new features, will decide that having apps on the Amazon home screen is good enough, and move on.

I think it’s still fair for Amazon to impose it as they really don’t profit from the fire TV at all. the whole purpose of producing the devices in the first places was to address Amazon Prime’s failure to compete with the might of Netflix which had far more content and produced apps for multiple devices like Apple TV and Roku that Amazon Prime did not. The Fire TV and Amazon’s decision to prevent its competitors from utilising the the voice features of its remote have successfully persuaded many people, who do not wish to pay 140 dollars or 170 dollars for Roku or Apple TV, to join Prime because of the rich Prime-centric ecosystem that Netflix cannot compete with on the Fire TV boxes. Indeed there was a time I was tempted myself after seeing how well Prime runs on these boxes.

This is why it is the user’s responsibility to root their devices when the opportunity presents itself so that they have the ability to apply system modifications that will help bypass Amazon’s perfectly valid restrictions. But i can see in the future that Amazon will most definitely ban the Kodi and SPMC apps in time as apps are being used to stream Amazon content for free, completely defeating Amazon’s purpose of building these boxes.

Honestly with Kodi now on the home page I have no need for FireStarter. I’d bet the most users only installed it as a convenient way to access a side loaded app and that Amazon making these two changes simultaneously was a well calculated risk.

Does anyone know how much more attention FireStarter got after llama stopped working?

With these tactics, Amazon is increasingly becoming a totalitarian corporation. This shows desperation on part of Amazon, and the truth is Amazon isn’t making enough profits. I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon bans sideloading altogether.

Amazon offers its services if you pay the annual fee. You formerly paid for an add-free media environment. Two years in, they have progressively escalated their advertising, and now have started interfering in a unprecedented way with sideloading.

I have renewed for another year, but these trends don’t have to go much further for me to reject their subscription.

One mans Launcher is another man’s media center. By this logic, All Apps on the firetv occupy the real estate that Amazon is worried about us plebs not seeing.

If it is not got part of the Amazon Ad Ecosystem….off you trott. I did wonder why I was now seeing trailers in video content I was already paying for with Prime. No doubt, Ads will follow like Spotify, interrupting your viewing inside other Apps….Any of em that disagree…again off you trott……..Downward spiral….

I hope not atleast until 2019 or so…at least let us all enjoy these devices the way things are for another 2 or 3 years.

I predict the next decade will bring the downfall/security blocking/etc of getting free ripped videos and free streaming and free downloaded mkvs etc…so let’s all enjoy the free ride for as long as we can without worrying about anything that happens from month to month.

Said it in the past. Without root you are just renting your device. And are at the will of the maker.

Anyway, I will continue to use my Rooted Gen1 FTV’s for another year or longer. But I will not care about any New future version FTV(S). I will not recommend any Amazon device to anybody like I’ve done in the past. I will just upgrade to a v2 or v3 NVidia Shield or other fully open device when needed.

I purchased Fire TV (1st gen) from staples (got it for $62 after coupon) and it was an older version (manufactured 2014) with rootable firmware. Unfortunately my attempt at blocking update didn’t work and it updated to the 51.1.6.2 :(

What software version is your fire tv/stick on??? Probably 5.0.5.1…Did you purchase kodi from amazon app store when it was briefly avaliable? If so…delete if from your amazon.com account. Restart your fire/tv and then start kodi from settings>applications>manage inatalled applications. Close kodi and then it should be in your recents. If not go to apps and find kodi and make it a favorite.

Yes 5.0.5.1 – I don’t have that amazon account anymore. It was a friend’s and I don’t speak to him anymore. Any other way around it? I tried going to the Settings>Applications menu and launching it but no matter how many times I do that, it still never shows in the Recents menu.

Well…whose account is the fire tv logged into now? Just to give you an example…I have a fire tv stick that I gave to my friend to use,…however its still logged into my Amazon account. Since I had “purchased”/downloaded kodi(Helix 14.2) from the amazon app store when it was still available it would not show even in the Apps section of the home menu due to a bug/glitch in amazons software. My friend was using firestarter to launch kodi. But once the stick updated to 5.0.5.1 firestarter was blocked. So I decide to just have my friend deregister it and then log in with his amazon account email/password. After logging in and manually starting kodi and then stopping it…it still didn’t show in the recent section. So he went to the apps section on the home menu where he found kodi and was able to use the context button to designate it as a favorite(little heart icon) and then it showed in the recent area of the home screen I think he also synced the content from the settings menu for good measure.

This makes both my fire tvs useless. I own Rokus, fire tvs, and Raspberry Pis and prefer the Rokus above all for streaming. My main use of the fire tvs was viewing my personal media, which is on a non-internet-connected network. Firestarter allowed use of the fire tvs without the necessity of an internet connection. I could double-click home, switch to the private network, and launch kodi. I was still using a fire tv for some channels when I wasn’t streaming with a Roku. However, this change now makes it necessary to swap out the fire tvs with the Pis (out of inputs on the TVs). So… amazon has now caused me to put the useless boxes in the attic. My prime membership just expired and I’ve been questioning dumping the amazon chase rewards card (which saw $25k+ in purchases), so my little use of the fire tvs may not mean much, but my switch to local outlets for purchases will sure make me feel a lot better about this poor, greedy business practice. Yes, it may be subsidized, but it’s my hardware and I can choose to hammer it if I wish.

This highlights my primary issue with what Amazon is doing. Lurker purchased the device with a specific function in mind, and now can’t do it anymore due to a forced update.

The device has a certain set of capabilities when it’s purchased, and there is implied assurance that those capabilities will remain in place as long as the device is functioning. It’s unfair to the buyer to remove any of those capabilities through a mandatory update. If they simply told the customer what the update does and gave the option to decline the update, then everything would be fine. Owners could choose if they want to stay with the feature set they purchased, or move forward with Amazon’s new vision of the product.

The simple option to decline updates would remove all liability from Amazon and put it on the owner of the device. I’m even fine with having automatic updates on by default with the option to prompt for updates buried deep in the settings. That would result in 99% of owners auto updating as things are today, and give the small set of power users the courtesy of a choice to update.

Tell me about this “implied assurance” you speak of. There is no “implied assurance” that nothing will ever change. How is it “unfair” to protect ones livelihood? Why would they give an option to decline an update? Did you (or anyone complaining like a little sissy girl) ever bother to read the agreement you clicked “I accept”? 50 bucks says hell no you didn’t.

If you don’t like the updates, go get a Roku. Oh dang! I forgot…they don’t give you a choice either…You need Apple TV…Dammit! THEY also update with no option to refuse. But you aren’t over on those forums, complaining it “isn’t fair”. Hell, even todays AVRs get updated. And here’s another; I bought a Panasonic blue ray player about 6 years ago. Forced updates removed good apps and put up crappy ones. I unplugged the unit and went on with my life. I recently connected it again and lo and behold, they updated it again. This time they removed about 6 of the 10 available apps and no replacement apps were or can be installed. Should I be angry? Why?

Finally, “power users” defined, only means the ones who want to pirate their content because they feel they are entitled to. While the rest of the honest users foot the bill by paying the price hikes necessary to make up for the lost revenue from pirate users.

I hate being right… this is how it all begins. I have seen this before 4-5 years ago with Roku when they began banning apps left and right destroying a decent platform. Then the Roku forums lit up like a Christmas Tree. There will be 3 groups forming now, 1. the Liberty Seekers (like myself) who feel we should have the right to use our property as we see fit, 2. the innocent lambs who will scream “the sky is falling” and there is nothing we can do so accept it, 3. then there will be the Corporate Overlord angry people like Mark here who will continuously scream one phrase over and over “all you people want is piracy!” which this has nothing to do with. Just like Battlestar Galactica “it’s happened before and it will happen again…” history is repeating itself, unbelievable!

Hey Mark,…apparently you need reading comprehension skills,…wherein lurker’s post did he say anything about pirated content!!! This is what he said…
“My main use of the fire tvs was viewing my personal media, which is on a non-internet-connected network. Firestarter allowed use of the fire tvs without the necessity of an internet connection.”…

Lets see..Kodi is used for piracy, Plex is another. Otherwise, there is no need for these “open source” apps. You know it and you are mad because you don’t like being called what you really are…thieves. You want free, free, free and don’t care what it takes to get it free.

All you whiners saying that you are entitled to do what you want is nothing short of being an anarchist.

Kodi and Plex are absolutely used for piracy. But they pass the “Napster test”– they are not EXCLUSIVELY used for piracy. People actually, no BS, have legitimate uses for the software. In that way it is much like the Windows OS itself. Some people use Windows to do all sorts of ilicit stuff. But that’s not its sole use or indeed its intended use.

I personally do not pirate video or install sketchy kodi addons; I record OTA TV and rip blu-rays to my NAS, and watch them locally on Kodi and remotely via Plex.

A fine example of ignorance. I have an enormous library of DVDs and Blurays that I purchased. I am a musician and am one of the most outspoken anti-piracy advocates among my peers. I view my own media, much of which is self-recorded, and have it online for my enjoyment and am doing nothing illegal and take offense at the accusation. I agree these devices and certain apps could be used illegally, but that doesn’t mean everyone is doing it.

Thank you Mark for proving my theory, I knew you couldn’t stay away for long. you have passed the “Pavlov’s Dog” test (you , of course,are the dog). On a serious note if we want to ban every legitimate app that can be used for piracy, we might as well start right off with YouTube… wait, what? We know that will never happen, if word got out that Amazon banned YouTube they would take a huge hit to their bottom line…now out of respect for Elias and his amazing website I will end my witty banter with you and move on to more important business.

Although some people do use Kodi for evil, some like me, who have purchased and own the physical DVD and blurays for about 1,200 movies (started buying when DVD’s were first released) want to have a simple system to watch the movies I bought. Kodi allows me to do that. In addition, I am extremely happy I ripped my discs to my hard drives because some discs can go bad over time if the pressing wasn’t done properly. Some of my discs have a milky hue to them because the layers have started to separate. If I wasn’t able to “backup” my media I would have lost some movies I purchased years ago. I don’t give my discs to my friends so they can pirate etc.

I believe if you want to watch the content you should either rent it or own it, but if I own it I should be able to watch it where ever I want. Case in point I am going on vacation next week and I will have my 4 hard drives in a startec hard drive tower hooked to my laptop which will be hooked to the flat screen in our room and at night after hiking we can sit back and watch any movie in our library via kodi.

I use my fire TV to watch my prime content to rent movies and watch my Kodi library in a room separate from where the video server is.

So people who say Kodi is there for pirates are way over generalizing. My friend who is a movie freak like me has the same setups and owns a huge library of movies just like I do.

Regarding Amazon blocking apps, I don’t like it but if I am too lazy to root, then if they change their software I will have to live with that. Being that I knew when I bought the hardware they were selling it at a close to break even they were expecting to make money off me using their services, and they do. If you really want a completely flexible device pay more for it, root the one you have or live with it. But DON’T call me a pirate just because I like movies and use Kodi as a way to watch the ones I have purchased. I have all the knowledge I need to pirate, I choose not to because it’s wrong to steal, which is what pirating is.

Maybe since Amazon had to fight to get good reviews for the v2 hardware after the disaster that was the launch, those of us that haven’t reviewed our purchases should fill it out with the appropriate rating and reason for the rating (removal of purchased apps). Maybe that will get their attention, if their average user (non kodi user) thinks they could start losing purchased apps at any time because Amazon decides they don’t like those apps.

Couple things. First of all, as a regular user of Firestarter, I just purchased a movie to watch from Amazon last week. Firestarter didn’t interfere with that in the slightest. When I’m looking for something to watch I regularly browse Amazon’s Home page which gives them all the opportunity they need to deliver all the advertising they want to put on the screen to me. Again, Firestarter doesn’t interfere with that in the slightest.

However, if I go to the Nvidia Shield (as I am now intending to do) Amazon loses all access to me. Meanwhile I’m more than capable of obtaining whatever Amazon-only content I want to see through alternative means, so I lose nothing in the transition. Mind you, I WANT to give Amazon my money, but only as a customer, not as a subject.

Secondly, while all are correct that Amazon’s move is understandable from a business sense (if your sense of business includes an adversarial disregard for the customer’s wishes) understand that this just as legitimately justifies a choice to disable Netflix, or HBO Go, or any other app that “interferes” with Amazon’s business plan.

Inconceivable? Firestarter is one thing, your say, Netflix is a completely different case. Tell me, where are the Apple TV, or the Chromecast for sale on Amazon? They used to be there… Surely Amazon wouldn’t provoke companies as big as Apple or Google, right?

Oh, I see, you bought the device with Netflix and HBO capability listed in the capabilities at the time of sale. That’s a Good Point. So, you uh, you have a contract, a statement, receipt, anything from Amazon saying that the device will always support those services? No? Huh. Well, don’t worry, they know what you want on the device you bought, and after all, if its understandable from a business point of view, it’s “right”

If the whole point of Firestarter was to give access to your sideloaded apps because they weren’t on the Amazon homescreen then this update actually fixes that issue. The update actually removes the need for Firestarter by showing Kodi and your other apps on the Amazon Home Screen. And double clicking now actually takes you to the Apps section where all of your stuff is.

Also, you can still install Firestarter and launch it from the Apps section if you prefer that menu for your apps. It can be installed on a new device. I have it running on a Firestick with the new update.

This sucks. I sell Fire TV Sticks and have sold almost 200 and I activate them using one Amazon account, however, the max amount of active devices allowed is 25, which means that all of those sticks I sold do NOT have the option to launch Kodi from recents because it states that I need to deregister devices and so on. I understand the move from a financial perspective with the ads, but they are imposing themselves in a very uncomfortable manner.

Actually, Amazons actions here will have at least one positive outcome. It will hamper the parasitic ‘sellers’ with their awful Kodi ‘fully loaded builds’. If you want to accept money from passing on other peoples hard work (which is provided for free), then accept the outcome.

Urgan, not that I have to explain myself to you or anyone else, however, though it is true that I do make money off of selling the boxes, all of my sales are in person through word of moutg as I don’t believe in selling these online and such. Additionally, I’m an active donor to the creators of add-ons and to rbox and jocala and to everyone that has helped make these sticks an additional source of income for me. You must be one of those people that think jailbreaking an iPhone is solely for the purpose of getting free apps when, in fact, that is the one thing most people do NOT do.

Just create 8 different amazon accounts and register 25 on each one and sell another 200!!! Everyone will have kodi in their recent section. And you’ll have access to all of them through your 8 amazon accounts….

From what I understand, the limit has been there for a very long time, I just didn’t know about it until I actually tried to find Kodi in the recents section, and it said that I had surpassed the limit allowed for active devices. Now, I can still register devices with that one account that has about 200 (I don’t think there’s a limit there) but it won’t allow me to display the apps section in the home screen.

Amazon played this hand quite deviously. First they allow sideloading and sell more than any other device because people who want open devices love the stick. And after selling out so much you can’t find them in the store, they are going to flip the script and close down the device? They may not make money from hardware sales, but they sure sold a ton of devices.

Good afternoon Elias,
My question is in regards to your recent article about the “Firestarter” app being deleted from the FTVS and FTV. I still have the app on my phone, do you think it is still possible to side-load a third party app this way? Without it being able to download the firestarter app to my fire-stick?
Thanks as always for your answer.

Correction*** the app I have on my phone is actually “Apps2Fire”, but it loads the firestarter app. If I go in and delete the firestarter .apk. do you think it might still work for side-loaded apps?
Thanks again :)

Deleting the Firestarter apk will not do anything because the installed files are still on the stick. However, if you factory reset your Firestick and transfer over the apk file Firestarter still installs and works. But it will no longer take you to the Firestarter screen when you press the Home button. it will take you to the Apps section and there it will show Firestarter as well as your other Apps.

My opinion is the firestick definitely hasn’t got a long life cycle. If this is the way they want to go, they should bring a totally locked off streaming device,people would know then what they are buying and they can feel free to take it or leave it. Can anybody name any other android device that has purposely blocked a sideload app through an update? Not a great idea. A simple apk name change and its running again. Will these updates come every week,month? Pointless.

Unless Amazon apologizes and reverses course and makes a commitment they won’t try this again I’m going to just disconnect my 4 various FireTVs and move to more open platforms, then I’ll NEVER purchase movies or content via Amazon instead of Almost Never.

If you are going to switch up from Amazon to another product I would definitely recommend going with an Nvidia Shield. After using the Firestick or Fire TV you will frustrated and annoyed by the remote control and navigation on an Android box.